The Hindu : Front Page : UPA government should seek trust vote or quit: Rajnath

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Saturday, Sep 22, 2007
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UPA government should seek trust vote or quit: Rajnath

Neena Vyas

Says it is headed for a crash and mid-term election is a real possibility

— Photo: PTI

Setting the agenda: Senior BJP leader L.K. Advani inaugurates a “Ram Path” exhibition at the party’s national executive meet in Bhopal on Friday. Party president Rajnath Singh is at centre

BHOPAL: Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh demanded here on Friday that the United Progressive Alliance government immediately call a special session of Parliament to seek a confidence vote, or quit if it is unable to face the House.Taking note of the turbulence in New Delhi resulting from the UPA-Left stand-off over the nuclear deal, he said that for all practical purposes, the government was in a minority. It was headed for a crash.

Setting the tone for his party’s three-day national executive committee meeting here, Mr. Singh spoke about the very real possibility of a mid-term Lok Sabha election. The UPA lost the stability plank, and in this age of coalition politics a BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was the only option.

While asserting that cultural nationalism was the BJP’s ideological core, he raised issues dear to Hindutva. He charged the UPA government with minority appeasement and vote-bank politics, pointing to its efforts to implement the Sachar committee recommendations.

He alleged that the UPA lacked the political will to fight terrorism. He promised to bring back the Prevention of Terrorism Act (repealed by the UPA government) as a measure of his party’s resolve to fight this menace.

Taking a dig at the Prime Minister, Mr. Singh said that while he declared zero tolerance of human rights violations by the armed forces, he did not talk in the same language about continuing terrorist acts.

On Ramar Sethu, the BJP president said this issue resulted in differences between the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

BJP leaders indicated separately that the executive would adopt a separate resolution on Ramar Sethu, an issue on which the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has directed all its wings to work in coordination, superficial differences notwithstanding.

In his 15-page address, Mr. Singh touched on the grim agrarian scenario with continuing farmer suicides, and promised to set this right, when the NDA came to power, by making villages the focal point of development.

Among the failures of the Centre, he mentioned the elusive Women’s Reservation Bill to give 33 per cent Assembly and Lok Sabha seats to women.

He referred to the wheat import issue and demanded that the minimum support price for farm produce be immediately raised.

On the nuclear deal, the BJP reiterated its demand for setting up a joint parliamentary committee, while asserting that the foundation for a paradigm shift ushering in a golden era in India-United States relations was laid by the Vajpayee government. Mr. Singh alleged that neither the Congress nor the Left was ever concerned about India’s nuclear capability.

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